Mindsets are formed from experiences. They are thought processes that will stunt your growth. The enemy does not have a stronghold. You are the one that is holding it strongly and not letting it go. Strongholds are set up for protection because when we are young and innocent, we have been hurt, abused, taken advantage of, but Jesus says, "In the kingdom, we must become like a little child again," without reservations.
Children that grow up in the church have a lot of strongholds. They have believed a lie for so many years because of traditions and religion and denominational doctrines. Now they need the hammer – the right one – that will break everything that is not of Him! Sometimes you resist the right people and the right word in your life. You keep setting up your own boxes and fortresses in your mind. Only people that are set free can help others to be free.
Just like frugality, if you are frugal with yourself there is no way to be extravagant with others. We can be trapped by our own way of thinking. But let this mind be in you: THE MIND OF CHRIST! God wants to break our paradigm. Who the Son sets free is free indeed. Are you really free indeed? Because we have been given freedom, let's walk in.
Jesus broke the religious Jewish mindsets. Their traditions were not evil or bad, but they kept themselves from really knowing Him. The renewing has to happen by knowing the Word of God! It is impossible to know God without knowing the Word. By revelation you can bring the kingdom.
God cannot live inside of us fully until He can get past our strongholds. This mind must be in you as it is in Christ Jesus. Meditate on this! Act upon this! Not upon formulas and traditions. He does not want us to be bound by the way we think! Formulas can be good, but when they become traditions, they are not good. God is not an ABC God. He is faith, and He is power. His grace is greater than our mindsets and our ways. Our mindsets and traditions are strongholds. They cause us to expect something that will never happen because we are following carnality. We cannot think earthly because He is from above.
The church in Corinth was very carnal, worldly. They had worldly strongholds. Paul was telling them: Take every thought of yours captive! The enemy wants to take up space in our minds! Through our strongholds, we are giving the devil permission if we are not letting the Word of God change our thinking. You hold onto something that was good but that will never take you to where you are supposed to be. God is not a step program.
We break strongholds through obeying Christ and His Word. This is the exchange. I was a bastard; now I am a son! I was living a lie; now I am in the Truth. The Word of God keeps breaking the mindsets that we have planted from this corrupt world. God's Word with revelation will uproot every tree we have planted in our minds and break mindsets that have been put in by lies. You can’t be something unless you think like it. So, as a man thinks, so He is! That is why Jesus always says, "Let this mind be in you." The same mind that is in Him.
Little sayings can trap you! Then the enemy has your whole mind, and then here is a stronghold being formed. We have two hands. One has to be letting go all the time, and the other has to be receiving all the time. We are receiving from the Father as our mindsets are being broken. We are letting go of lies, like to be kingdom minded is to be no earthly good. This is another lie: This is just the way we are supposed to be. No, we are to be totally kingdom minded! We are not supposed to stay the same!
Renewing is to return! Don’t relapse into your old thinking! Give up your will and your way of thinking, and let God renew it! The stronger your will is, the stronger your stronghold is! You can’t ever change the tree without plucking out the roots. You live in this prison in your own mind! God wants to give us His mind. That is what we are supposed to have from the beginning! This is not a one time session that will fix everything, but a lifestyle! You can bury it or hide it, but you will never be really free because of your mindset! The Holy Spirit promises to guide us into all Truth, but we need to follow it. That is how faith works!
The Gospel of Jesus Christ is not the Gospel only unto salvation, but the Gospel of the kingdom! We need to get hold of the Truth! Or you will become a prisoner of your own imagination, shutting down the Kingdom. A spiritual man knows everything that the Spirit reveals to them! Their minds have been changed, renewed by revelation. They live from revelation to revelation, and by faith, and that is what justifies them.
People with worldly mindsets always miss the heart of the Father in the matter! People go to hell because Satan shaped their mindsets. Their strongholds became their destruction. God turns Christians over to a reprobate mind when they resist the Truth and don't allow themselves to change, saying things like: “I am never going to trust anybody again!” But breaking mindsets causes you to say, “God, I will trust who you trust.” People with strongholds keep trying to find shortcuts but there are none! They have to lay down everything, and bring everything under submission to the Truth! They don’t even trust the Holy Spirit. Their hearts become hard, and they call themselves wise, but God sends them the foolish things and people to confound them, foolish to the world but wise to God. His ways are higher than man's ways.
People do not like to retain God in their knowledge. They want the cross for Jesus, but they don’t want it for themselves. “I am not picking it up,” they say when they reject the Truth. They hold onto anything that exalts itself above the Word of God – which is Truth. This is false grace: They receive Jesus' cross but never pick up theirs.
A not renewed mind and a reprobate mind – that is what they have. Because of our renewed minds, there is no old man anymore! You can try to have self-control in the flesh, but self-control comes from the fruits of the Spirit! See...religion wants do everything by the flesh. Paul said we might as well go back to the law.
Paul was saying to the Corinthian church, “You are living with a carnal mind. You have to have it renewed!” Their minds were exalting themselves above the mind of Christ. The Word of God is the mind of Christ. By the Spirit and by His power, our minds are being renewed, if we let it! The grace of God is changing us! God is saying, “Let it go,” and, “Let this mind be in you.” You are so strong; you are your own strongman, your own worst enemy! God resists the strong. He gives grace to the weak.
Some people have set their minds even about how they hear God. There was a season when God was using dreams to talk to them, but now God is using brothers and sisters. Their mindsets don’t let them understand the mind of Christ! His ways are not our ways, but that stronghold will keep us bound by our ways! Your mind becomes stuck. Your conscience becomes seared!
Every time God reveals Himself to us, we are getting more freedom! Put on the mind of Christ! To think on things above (The Word), you need to be under it (Submission). The devil will only flee if you are not double minded! The only way to defeat the devil is by submitting to God and His Word.
If you are having strongholds holding your back, it means you have pride because you won’t let go. Get it right now! Some people go to the throne of grace with pride but not boldly. You will get no grace in that case. He only gives grace to the humble! There will be no transformation when there is no renewing of the mind! Nothing is going to happen. The only way for Him to do anything in your life is by submission! He is not a tyrant king. He gives us a choice.
His thoughts are sober. Let your thoughts be sober also! Remember: Stephen said, "Stiff-necked, rebellious. You always resist the Holy Spirit." We must submit to God, to the Body, and to the Word. Sanctification happens by the washing of the water of the Word. You, as His bride, submit yourself to Him, as your bridegroom (as The Word)! Let every thought that does not line up to the Word be cast down, casting down imaginations and every thought, emotion, every teaching or tradition that exalts itself. Your mind is renewed by submission.
For this cause, we should leave the mind of this world, of carnality, and join to the mind of Christ, your mind becoming one with the mind of Christ! Leave mindsets and strongholds that are always exalting themselves! We need to be brainwashed by the washing of the water of His Word! The breaking of the strongholds is done by the hammer of the Word of God. This is why it is a constant thing. Jesus is saying, "Let these sayings sink down into your ears."
Resist everything, put it in prison, everything that is trying to go above His ways and Words. Let His Words sink down in you, and let it be flesh in you! You can get the right mind faster if you humble yourself under His mighty hand, and His Word will lift you up.
God is not coming back for division or reprobate minds, but for people under One Spirit, One Word, with One Mind. People get so angry at the Truth, but those people never change. Let this not be you. Let the hammer knock down everything that exalts itself above God. At the end, what needs to prevail is One MIND, and it has to be the mind of Christ, and no other!
Word: 2 Corinthians 10:1-6 – Romans 8:6-8 - Romans 1- 1 Corinthians 2 – Ephesians 4 - James 4 - Ephesians 5 - Luke 9:44-48
Click here to watch the full message: Breaking Mindsets and Releasing Strongholds
Comments (0)
Add a Comment